The Eightpoints is not one of the eight Mortal Realms but a shard-realm suspended at the very threshold of the Realm of Chaos, a jagged fragment of a world destroyed long ago. From its central mountain, the Varanspire, eight vast realmgates open like the points of a compass, each piercing into a different Mortal Realm and turning this place into the hinge upon which Chaos assaults them all.
Once called the Allpoints, this crossroads-realm was fought over by gods in the Age of Myth, for whoever holds it holds the roads to every realm at once. Its skies churn with the raw energies of the Dark Gods, its lands are a nightmare patchwork of a thousand plundered worlds, and its very geography rewards ambition, cruelty, and strength above all else.
The Eightpoints is the domain of Archaon the Everchosen, chosen champion of the united Chaos Gods, who seized the shard and raised the Varanspire as his invasion-throne. From here his Slaves to Darkness and the massed hordes of the Ruinous Powers pour through the eight gates to ravage the realms, making the Eightpoints the launch-point of every great Chaos crusade. Beyond the Varanspire sprawl the twisted domains of the Everchosen's vassals and rivals, warlords, sorcerers, and daemon-princes who war endlessly among themselves for his favour even as they muster for the next invasion, and the very ground shifts to reward the strong, so that a champion's fortress may rise or crumble according to the fickle whim of the gods he serves.
To grasp this place is to grasp the shape of Chaos in the Age of Sigmar itself: a single dark fortress-realm poised like a dagger at the heart of creation. So long as the Everchosen holds the Eightpoints, no realm is ever truly safe, for the enemy is always but one gateway away.
The atlas continues
